May 26, 2016

Dylan Cozens is hitting .279 with an Eastern League leading 13 home runs this season for Double-A Reading (Steven Kiebach/Philliedelphia)

By: Brandon Apter, contributor

The Phillies have gotten a ton of new prospects over the course of the last two seasons, but you rarely hear much about any of them being power hitters. For the last decade, Ryan Howard has provided the Phillies with a power-hitting bat, with the exception of the last couple of seasons, but it begs the question as to who will be the next player to have that bat pop like Howard at the big league level for the Phils. Right now, it looks like Dylan Cozens could be that guy.

Cozens, 21, was a two sport athlete in high school. Instead of going to college at Arizona, the former Division I college football prospect signed with the Phillies after being drafted in the second round of the 2012 draft. During the first few years in the Phillies organization, Cozens showed a good bit of raw power, but his eagerness to show off that pop led to high strikeout numbers. After hitting 14 homers in his first two seasons with the Phillies organization, Cozens hit 16 during the 2014 season, but still was posting very high strikeout numbers and not too many walks. He struck out 44 times in 50 games in 2012, 64 times in 68 games in 2014 and then a monstrous 147 times in 2014. In 111 games in 2015, he went down on strikes 90 times.

This season has been somewhat different for the corner outfield slugger. Instead of solely focusing on his power stroke and ability to hit homers, the Phillies had Cozens focus more on hitting tools as a whole and he's shown improvement in 2016.

“They wanted me to do a bunch of different stuff. It wasn’t really working, but I was trying it. … I felt like they were trying to hit me more like a contact hitter than a power hitter. I ended up being able to do it last year, I hit like .280-.290 but I didn’t have (many) home runs. I thought, ‘I don’t really want to be that guy." [PhillyVoice.com]

Even though he didnt really want to be 'that guy', his improved approach has worked. Cozens not only has taken more walks, but also shows off a ton of that raw power that made him such an exciting pick back in 2012. In 2015, he walked just 29 times in 420 at-bats. This season, he's already taken 20 bases on balls in 172 at-bats. Cozens' 10.3 percent walk rate is a career-high this season as is his 27.3 percent strikeout rate. He still strikes out a good bit, sure, but his increased patience gives him the ability to get in more favorable counts to tap into that power stroke, which can produce some impressive moon shots as seen below. You may not see the ball land in the video, but it goes over the CentraPro signage out in right center field.

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Cozens leads the Double-A Eastern League with 13 home runs and the majority of his blasts would be gone in a majority of big league parks. He's slashing .279/.351/.587 and his 13 homers are tied with a few other players for second in all of Minor League Baseball. His 39 RBI's and 14 doubles are second in the EL, his .587 slugging percentage leads the league.

“Sometimes you have to learn to be a hitter and then that natural power will come,” Reading manager Dusty Wathan said. “You can’t teach power, it’s one of those things they talk about all the time. You can’t teach it. He has it in there. So it’s a process of trying to develop him into a hitter, and when he hits balls more consistently on the barrel, more balls are going to go out of the ballpark. I think you’re seeing that now.” [PhillyVoice.com]

While his power hitting is very intriguing, it isn't his only attribute. For a guy who is 6-foot-6 and weighs upwards of 235 pounds, Cozens moves very well in the outfield and has a plus arm as well. He showed off his cannon during the Phillies Futures Game at Citizens Bank Park, gunning down a runner at the plate to save a run. Cozens also holds his own on the basepaths with nine steals this season.

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After hitting just .247 in the month of April with five homers and 18 RBI's, Cozens has hit .308 in 24 games this month, three more than in April. He has eight home runs and 21 RBI's in May. He credits his improvements to not only losing some weight in the offseason, but increasing his flexibility.

"I didn't lose that much weight, only about 10 or 15 pounds," Cozens said. "I didn't hit the weights as much and instead improved my flexibility, running, speed work, things like that.

"I think it definitely paid off. My swing isn't as tight as it was and I feel like I'm a lot stronger." [CSNPhilly.com]

If Cozens continues to mash Double-A hitting, a promotion to Triple-A still seems unlikely until at least the later parts of the season. At just 21, he's ranked as the Phillies 22nd best prospect by MLB Pipeline. Cozens is the same age as J.P. Crawford anda year younger than both Nick Williams and Jorge Alfaro, so his development is right on track for a kid out of high school.